Enamelling

Jaeger-LeCoultre hosts one of the world’s only workshops with the know-how to produce miniature painting on enamel. This century-old art had disappeared for a little over a generation until 1994 when one of the Manufacture’s watchmakers decided to rediscover its secrets. It took a few years before the first pictorial works would once again adorn the Reverso, for enamelling is where painting meets alchemy. One value sums up this art: patience. The three enamel miniaturists now working in the Manufacture have mastered all the traditional techniques: grand feu, champlevé, translucent and cloisonné. Still driven by the same thirst for discovery, they have recently developed an exclusive process which gives the subject extraordinary depth. Just slightly tilting the miniature under a light source reveals colour variations and unsuspected perspectives and nuances.